


love potion

by apprenticenanoswarm



Category: DCU (Comics), The Flash (Comics)
Genre: M/M, sam and evan exist at the same time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 07:39:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18048383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apprenticenanoswarm/pseuds/apprenticenanoswarm
Summary: gloomy wand man does a brood





	love potion

People will love you and love you and love you so much, so much, right up until that moment when you become just a little too much of an inconvenience.

Mark saw it with his Aunt Jean when she got cancer. How his mother hugged her sister while she cried on the couch, how his father rubbed her back and murmured promises, saying they were a family, they’d get through this together, they’d fight together, they’d win together. How they had fought, all together, letting Aunt Jean move in with them, taking her shopping, taking her to chemo, holding parties in her honor, propping her up every time she lost the will to fight, making big, inspiring speeches every time she got scared. Then the weeks went by, and the months, and she started to puke everywhere, and needed help moving around, and needed more and more trips to the hospital, more money, more effort, more and more and more and Mark watched as the light of love faded from his parents’ eyes until he heard them whispering to one another: “You know, it isn’t fair to force her to hang on for our sake. She’s in so much pain. She’s so unhappy.” He saw his mother’s gaze lingering on a fancy new fridge, and knew it was because they were planning to expand their kitchen into Aunt Jean’s room when she was dead.

People love you right up until they don’t.

Same with Clyde. His brother loved him so much. Mark has never doubted that. He knows that Clyde’s kindness to him was always genuine, always true as sunshine. Clyde has his back when Mark got caught smoking weed at school. Clyde had his back when Mark failed math again and again and their mother screamed at him and threw all his books out the window and into a puddle. Clyde had his back when Mark didn’t go to college and his father said, ‘well, it’s not like we expected much out of you anyway, kiddo.’ Clyde had his back the first time Mark tried to open his wrists, and the second. Clyde had his back the first time Mark went to prison.

But people love you right up until they don’t, and when Mark was raped in prison and tried to tell him, he saw the same look in Clyde’s eyes that he’d seen in his mother’s when Aunt Jean had puked on the carpet again. When Mark escaped prison, and got caught, and came running to Clyde for help, the look was still there, and suddenly Clyde was talking about his  _needing help_ and calling the police  _for his own good_.

Love is infinite, until it isn’t.

Mark bears that in mind always. With Len, with James, with Sam, with Digger, with Mick, with Axel, with all of them. He likes them, they’re his friends, maybe he even loves them, and hell, maybe they even love him too. Right up until they don’t anymore.

“Y’know, Mardon, you always got this look on you,” says Sam one drunken evening. “Like you’re staring at the world through a one-way mirror.”

“It’s ‘cause he doesn’t trust us,” says Len, blunt as ever.

Sam blinks. “Oh. That right, Mardon? I thought we were buds.”

“Don’t take it personal, Scudder,” says Len, while Mark pretends not to have heard the question. “He doesn’t trust anything. S’just how he is.”

And then.

Then there’s Evan.

Evan, who’s funny. Evan, who’s witty and devilish and cute. Evan, a breath of fresh air right when Mark needs it most, who’s a professional but also values a good laugh, who’s so excited to be in America, who doesn’t read much but actually does listen when Mark talks about his favourite books.

Evan who comes crawling to Mark’s door in the throes of withdrawal and begs for succour. Mark lets him in, makes him coffee, and vaguely wonders how long it’ll be until he feels his own love fade away, inevitable as desert rocks being worn down by sandstorms.

Except.

It…doesn’t?

And Evan’s fucking  **awful** , moody and sick and sweating all over the place. He whines  _constantly_ , snaps whenever Mark offers help, punches the walls and accidentally destroys a lamp. He cries all the time, and Mark cannot fucking stand crying. He pukes, and collapses, and complains, and worst of all he fails. He goes back to wonderland within a month. He does it again, and again, and again, and every time Mark thinks ‘This’ll be it, this’ll be when I stop giving a shit.’

Except. Except. Except. He doesn’t. Time passes, he continues to give a shit, and slowly, painfully slow, Evan starts to get better. He doesn’t quit, but he uses less and less, clawing his way up to ‘functional’. Len’s satisfied, convinced it was his fists that set him straight. Mark’s satisfied, knowing otherwise.

One day – a nice day, it’s Mick’s birthday and Mark brought the sun out for him – he catches Evan staring at him with an expression he recognises. It’s the way Aunt Jean once stared at tiny ten-year-old Mark when he was helping her clean up some vomit that she didn’t want his parents to find out about. Contemplative. Slightly confused. Slightly amused.

“Markie,” says Evan. “Wanna know summink.”

“What?”

“How come y’never throw a wobbly at all the shite I giveya?”

“A what?”

“Meanin’, how come ye dinnae get properly pissed off at me? Feckin’ hell, I get pissed off at me often enough. But yer always so… agh, dunno. Ye never shout. Ye never say yer disappointed. An’ ye never just chuck me out like I deserve. How come, Markie?”

Looking up from his novel, Mark’s surprised to find that what annoys him isn’t that he doesn’t have an answer to that question, but that Evan felt compelled to ask it. Lightning sparks across the bridge of his nose as he says, “Asshole, you think  _you’re_ more than I can handle? I handle storms. I handle tornadoes. You think you’re anything compared to a big fat twister throwing its weight around while I’m trying to tell it what to do with my dinky little stick? Please.”

Evan scratches his ear, shrugs. “Fair enough. Ye wanna go tae the pub?”

Sighing heavily, Mark sets his book aside and follows him into the nearest reflection.


End file.
